Award writing tips – preparing your story

As with many things in life, preparation is key – and that’s especially true in the world of award writing. To give your submission the best chance of success, you need to step back and take stock way before you put fingers to keyboard. 

With a strong track-record of award successes secured for our clients, we thought we’d share some of our expert tips to help elevate your award writing.  

Five essential steps before writing an award entry 

Whether you’re tasking your award writing exercise to an internal team member, or outsourcing to a specialist awards writing agency, these five essential steps will give you a head-start in honing your submission.  

1. Research – you may already have some ideas about the award you want to enter and the story behind your submission but make sure you research before rushing in. Check out previous winners to see what the panel’s looking for, and see if you can find any case studies or news releases that detail the winner’s projects to help you identify opportunities.
    
2. Find your hook – you need your award entry to stand out, so look for a different angle or element of interest. Did you face and overcome a significant challenge recently? Launched a new product or conquered a new market? Introduced a game-changing process that’s reaped rewards for you and your clients? Think BIG and BOLD.
    
3. Prepare to prove it – start thinking about how you can prove your success – impact-wise, not just in figures. What dashboards do you already produce, and what do you already measure? How can you go beyond volume measures to demonstrate benefits and value to clients? Collating as much data as you can will help you to create a more convincing story when it comes to the writing stage.
    
4. Prime your team – if you have internal experts writing or supporting the submission, get them onboard as early as possible. Discuss the award theme with them and draw on their insight and knowledge to help get to the heart of the project and its USPs.
    
5. Establish your review and sign-off process – you don’t want to let all that work go to waste, so get your processes in place from the start. Ensure key team members factor in time for calls and reviewing drafts with your internal or external award writer. And if the submission needs checking by managers further up the chain, keep them in the loop and get review time booked in their diaries well ahead – with some contingency built in for unexpected issues.  

Using an external award writing specialist  

These tips are a great starting point to help you prepare for writing an award entry, and will help you to manage the process more efficiently and effectively.  

If you decide to use a professional awards agency, you’ll still need to apply this guidance – but you’ll have help and support to keep things on track. When we work with businesses, we consult from the outset to ensure the award target is achievable, and then work with you to draw out the information required to write you an entry worthy of a win. 

To discuss a possible entry with our award writing experts, drop us a line here – or check out our award consultancy services to see how else we can help to support your submission.